Soul Searching 1

The first of three extracts from the two-part documentary broadcast on Channel 4 in 2004, in which neuroscientists, philosophers, mathematicians and monks discussed whether there was still a meaning to the idea of the soul. These clips feature neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga, psychiatrist and philosopher Iain McGilchrist and psychologist Louis Sass. This first clip begins with philosopher Galen Strawson and psychologist John Pickering. For those who are interested, you can see further clips or buy the whole DVD at www.becauseyouthink.tv.

• Category

  Science & Technology

[meerusha]

awesome. PLEASE upload the full one! this is so important to share!

[TaoPiet]

This shows how scientists can be incredible naive on a philosophical and psychological level.

[likeleavesinthewind]

@dasistedo was that supposed to be a reduction to the absurd of Strawson's hard determinism? I have no clue what you are trying to imply: that our actions are explained by causes that ultimately go beyond our control? If that is so, then yes, that is what Strawson says. But if you are trying to say that therefore it is okay or justified to beat people, then that doesn't follow.

[Ben Thejrporter]

This is a brilliant ptogramme. I've got the DVD, all two hours of it. It's well worth getting.

[theocean1973]

Behaviourism: "The craziest thing that has ever been said in the whole history of philosophy." behaviourists are quite nasty too; some of them say that you could do surgery on someone while their conscious & paralyzed but then erase the memory of it later, and it would be ethical because pain does not exist in the absence of behaviour. You can't be much more psychopathic than that.

[Lee Golos]

Gazzaniga's reductionist explanation demonstrates why he favors the left hemisphere

[eunisgrc]

I've been looking all over for this. Thanks very much for posting!

[malakiblunt]

please upload the full documentary! this is superb stuff!

thankyou your a star

[mszlazak]

Gazzanigger is delusional. Where is this story teller that interprets that it has a self? The regress is so palpable but I'm not amazed this irrational nonsense comes from a neuro-scientist.

[inertialcapacity]

The soul is a ball of light about the head that sustains and creates the body like a crystal etching or hologram. The equatorial cross section of the soul is given by radii the sine of 9,18,27...90 degrees. The masses of rings top down: 0.006193958,0.01889 and so on to unity. Ring area on y-axis and mass on x-axis yields a MPT diagram of elec.eng.theory and the mean dist. curve of Statistics. This tool is better than Calculus because it gives the limit and identifies parts exactly.